wants of the congregation; and that he had, in particular, almost as much as asked the deacon to make a legacy that would enable those who were to stay behind, to paint the meeting-house, erect a new horse-shed, purchase some improved stoves, and reseat the body of the building.  These modest requests, it was whispered—­for all passed in whispers then—­would consume not less than a thousand dollars of the deacon’s hard earnings; and the thing was mentioned as a wrong done him who was about to descend into the grave, where nought of earth could avail him in any way.

Close was the siege that was laid to Deacon Pratt, during the last week of his life.  Many were the hints given of the necessity of his making a will, though the brother and sister, estimating their rights as the law established them, said but little on the subject, and that little was rather against the propriety of annoying a man, in their brother’s condition, with business of so perplexing a nature.  The fact that these important personages set their faces against the scheme had due weight, and most of the relatives began to calculate the probable amount of their respective shares under the law of distribution, as it stood in that day.  This excellent and surpassingly wise community of New York had not then reached the pass of exceeding liberality towards which it is now so rapidly tending.  In that day, the debtor was not yet thought of, as the creditor’s next heir, and that plausible and impracticable desire of a false philanthropy, which is termed the Homestead Exemption Law —­impracticable as to anything like a just and equitable exemption of equal amount in all cases of indebtedness—­was not yet dreamed of.  New York was then a sound and healthful community; making its mistakes, doubtless, as men ever will err; but the control of things had not yet passed into the hands of sheer political empirics, whose ignorance and quackery were stimulated by the lowest passion for majorities.  Among other things that were then respected, were wills; but it was not known to a single individual, among all those who thronged the dwelling of Deacon Pratt, that the dying man had ever mustered the self-command necessary to make such an instrument.  He was free to act, but did not choose to avail himself of his freedom.  Had he survived a few years, he would have found himself in the enjoyment of a liberty so sublimated, that he could not lease, or rent a farm, or collect a common debt, without coming under the harrow of the tiller of the political soil.

The season had advanced to the early part of April, and that is usually a soft and balmy month on the sea-shore, though liable to considerable and sudden changes of temperature.  On the day to which we now desire to transfer the scene, the windows of the deacon’s bed-room were open, and the soft south wind fanned his hollow and pallid cheek.  Death was near, though the principle of life struggled hard with the King of Terrors.  It was now that that